The Theatre History Podcast
Episode 104: Elise Harris Helps Us Look Into "Sidney Brustein's Window"
October 24, 202355 min · 9,450 words
Show notes
Lorraine Hansberry's play "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" is often forgotten, or dismissed as an inferior play that fell victim to the playwright's declining health at the end of her life. But as our guest, Elise Harris, tells us, it's a fascinating work in its own right, and one with a rich and complicated history.
Highlighted moments
She felt white audiences were really misreading the play and projecting a lot of misunderstanding on it.
“she was getting these very conflicting pressures. And even though she was extremely strong minded, she didn't really listen to what anyone else thought necessarily, they were still there in her head.”
“if you locate the person who was at the center of one of these circles.”
“it's a play about the death of idealism and a very low point for idealism between the secret speech of 1956 and then 1965, when the new left came back again, there was this sort of malaise”
Transcript
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